Krups - Wake up and smell the coffee

Today I am going to go a little off topic and talk about some dreadful customer service. It has it’s roots in a purchase in Ukraine but responsibility lies solely with the parent company, which is German.

In November I bought a Krups XP5220 pump expresso machine. Several things swayed my decision, it was a pump machine at reasonable price, it was a very well respected brand and most reviews said it made excellent coffee. Many of the reviews also mentioned a flaw with the machine in that the steam wand was made of very cheap plastic and prone to breaking. Indeed Amazon’s customer reviews were full of this issue but some also said that Krups had redesigned the wand and it was fine. I weighed up the arguments and decided to to purchase. 

When the machine arrived, it looked very good, sleek, stylish and it made superb coffee. There was a separate little leaflet explaining how to remove and clean the steam wand, and I took this to mean that the problem had been acknowledged and dealt with.

Fast forward and after three months of daily capuchinos, the steam wand broke. Not as many people had experienced, at the retaining tabs but actually the steam tube had snapped completely in half. Some super glue and careful position repaired the tube which worked for another three days, then one of the retaining tabs broke. So here I am, and Englishman who cannot put steamed milk in his expresso. 

I am steaming over a broken steam wand

A quick bit of research tracked down the Ukraine/Russia service center and Tania made a call to them. The resultant conversation was shocking but not entirely unexpected. They claimed that the steam wand is not covered by the guarantee and they would not replace it for free. They did however give us the number of a supplier in Ukraine who would sell us a replacement. When Tania tried to get them to accept that there was a problem with the steam wand design by talking about the many reviews, there answer was perhaps, typically Russian. “If you knew, why did you buy it!” 

So resigned to having to pay for a new steam wand Tania called the number. It did not exist. Getting a little pissed of with this situation, I decided to write to Krups head office in Germany. Germans I thought, understood quality design and good customer care. Germans, efficient helpful people, they will understand. So I fired of a polite mail explaining the issue and asking for help. That was two weeks ago, until now I have not received the courtesy of an acknowledgment of my email, let alone a reply. 

Feeling even more upset by the lack of a reply, I fired off an email to the UK office. I explained I was an expat and I understood that it was not their problem but could they at least nudge me in the direction of someone that could. As you have probably guessed from this blog, they did not reply either. 

All of us have met with bad customer service in our lives, some things get sorted some don’t, but for me when a company produces a machine that obviously has a design fault, and then tells you if you knew why did you buy, its time for a little adverse publicity.

So in recognition of the effect of social networking on world affairs, I am attempting to start a “German Dawn” Not to bring down the government of the Federal Republic of course but  to stir a large German corporation into treating it’s customers with a little dignity and respect. I have set up a facebook here and I ask anyone who has suffered at the hands of bad service to like it. Lets see if people power can change corporations like it can governments.


As a footnote to this, its now three weeks since I emailed head office yet no reply. Yes I have checked the spam folder as well. Here are some of the comments I should have listened to on Amazon Reviews

Famous Last Words, Frozen for Prosperity

In my last article just a couple of weeks back I wrote about the benign and forgiving winter we were having, also noting that they may be famous last words. Well they were! That very evening the mercury in the thermometer dropped quicker than the draws of a Tijuana hooker at the sight of a $100 bill. From a balmy -1C in the afternoon, to a face numbing -18C the following morning. Snow covered the grass and walkways of our block yet the roads and pavements remained clear. The antique Soviet transport system worked flawlessly, cars travelled relatively easily to and from the city, people got to work.

Black Sea Babushka

In contrast, this week the UK has suffered one of its very rare, annual, snowfalls. Roads are shut, trains are not running and Heathrow cut half its schedule before a flake had hit a runway. The usual litany of excuses were trotted out, exceptional weather, wrong type of snow etc., but what always gets me, is when someone asks an official why the Eastern Europeans can keep going, the answer is nearly always “Well they are used to it.”

So what they are saying, is countries like Ukraine and Russia who have heavy snow for weeks per year and manage to keep everything running with no money and a decrepit transport system, are doing better than the UK, which has light snow, for literally hours per year and has the worlds 7^th richest economy and an advanced transport system? Doesn’t make sense to me.

Anyway, the freezing weather, it hasn’t risen above -5 since the last article, has brought with it a spectacular kind of beauty to this wonderful city. Non more so, than the relatively rare event of the Black Sea freezing over. So on Sunday with the mercury at a positively balmy -5C Tania and I donned our shorts and t-shirts, then our leggings, trousers, more t-shirts jumpers, most of our socks, hats, coats and gloves and set of to Arkadia, our nearby beach resort. It was indeed spectacular; the sea had frozen out beyond the horizon. The only tell tale sign that water was present were large container ships leaving the Port of Odessa, miles out in the distance.

See! There is sea!

Odessans walked the ice covered beaches and piers, took pictures and generally just admired this wonder of nature. Tania and I took our own pictures, strolling along listening to the occasional cracks of ice and watching the ice pack gently rise and fall as hidden waves tried to make themselves known. It was enchanting, exhilarating and beautiful and yet another reminder of why I love this city both in summer and the depths of winter.

The White, Black Sea

Eventually the cold started to penetrate our onionskin of clothing and so we turned for home and a nice cup of tea. Feet up and watching the BBC news, where, in the UK it was so cold, the sea had frozen over in Poole. They showed pictures, and it had. For nearly two feet out! Of course nobody went to see it, because the entire transport system was in a state of collapse and the Met Office had advised against all but essential travel.

Antarctica Sur Odessa

To see more of these images and many more, visit my photography site at The Odessa Files, or take a look at my book of the week about Odessa here

Odessa: Genius and Death in a City of Dreams

                            

In the Bleak Mid Winter

So here we are, fast approaching February, fresh from the trials and tribulations of celebrating two Christmases and two New Years. Before going any further, I should explain. I celebrated the traditional western Christmas of over indulgence and cringe inducing adverts that start in August. Here they celebrate the Russian Orthodox Christmas, which happens on the 7^th of January and seems to have introduced religion to the equation.

 Christmas Lights on Prymorski Boulevard

It was certainly odd thing going out the day after New Year and seeing people buying Christmas trees but that’s another story. The New Year I am referring to is the new New Year, i.e. the one traditionally celebrated in major cities worldwide, by pumping obscenely large amounts of fireworks into the sky whilst spreading obscenely large amounts of vomit over public pavements. Here we celebrated with the mother in law and a bottle of Ukrainian Champagne, Chateaux Chernobyl, which oddly despite being the freezer for three weeks was still warm when poured.

Anyway as usual my mind is wandering, so back on subject; here we also have a second New Year, old New Year. Now if you aren’t entirely confused, old New Year is another religious festival, celebrating the baptism of the baby Jesus. Honestly as an agnostic, seeing all the partying going on I was wondering whether there maybe was a God after all.

The point is that we are now officially in the bleak mid winter, my first in Ukraine and guess what, it’s not bleak. Now I know as I write this these are probably famous (hopefully not) last words, but so far the winter has been benign and forgiving. One of my reasons for leaving the UK and returning to sea in 2005 was the British winter. In January 2005, I had just returned from a photographic shoot in Havana and the very next day, I remember sitting in a car on London’s North Circular on the way to shoot a property. I had not moved for about 40 minutes. The rain was not beating down on the roof; it was driving past the windows horizontally on the cold breath of a howling gale. The gently glowing dashboard of my car indicated it was 2 degrees but outside it felt more like the end of days. At this point, I said fuck it I cannot do this anymore and started on the odd and meandering path that has led to my first Ukrainian winter. Now I am sure many of you know that Ukrainian winters can be harsh. Hell if they stopped the Third Reich they can certainly put a crimp in the day of middle aged expat. But you see, here in Odessa we have a certain something that helps us. The Gulf of Odessa. The relatively warm waters of Gulf moderate the harshness of the Ukrainian winter and although it does snow here and can get cold it’s does not have the cruel bitterness that the rest of the country suffers. Nor does it have the rampaging Atlantic storms that wreak havoc and bring misery and darkness to the Sceptered Isle.

So overall and so far it’s manageable. A few days of rain, some snow, a little above freezing, a little below freezing but very little strong wind. In fact so little wind that as I look out of the window of our flat, the trees in the yard still cling desperately to their remaining leaves, and its nearly February. That said, I am still looking forward to spring in this beautiful and endlessly engaging city.

A Nation of Animal Lovers

It seems to me that Ukraine gets a bad press when it comes to animal welfare and whilst undoubtedly there is an excessive amount of stray cats and dogs on the streets and that some of them will be abused, the majority of Ukrainians I have seen, care a lot about animals, both pets and feral.

When I first came here, I was struck not be the sheer number of feral cats there were but by the fact that a very high proportion of them seemed well fed and healthy. After a while, I began to notice that everywhere that the cats would congregate, there were little trays of left over food and water. One July morning whilst on our endless search for the perfect flat, Tania and I sat down in one of the suburbs to have a drink before continuing our Odyssey. There were a few stray cats around, not particularly friendly but not nervous either. Eventually an old Babushka arrived with a veritable sack full of food and systematically started dividing it into small plastic cartons and putting it down for the cats. More arrived from all over, adults, kittens, all, for the most part healthy. The Babushka spent about 25 minutes making sure the cats were fed before wandering over to a point about 25m away where three stray dogs were waiting, looking simultaneously jealous and expectant. The Babushka brought out some left overs for the dogs too, stuff more suitable for the canine genus such as bones and junks of meat. Tania and I watched this little show for about 45 minutes. It was obviously a daily occurrence yet the Babushka wanted nothing from the animals, she neither expected or wanted any friendship from them, she was just making sure that these animals had enough food to survive. Don’t think that this is an isolated incident, either, it happens in virtually every street in the city.

Another pointer towards Ukrainians love of animals is the number of pets and pet stores there are. Every morning I look out of our kitchen window I see a parade of dogs walking their owners. I am not talking about the latest nouveau rich accessory poodle that you see on the streets of central Odessa, I am talking everything from pedigree Labradors to nutty mongrels, all well looked after and obviously loved. As the dogs parade past, the local pet cats all sit half a meter from a dogs leads length away with an expression of pure scorn. Everywhere you go in Odessa there are well stock pet stores with knowledgeable staff, hell there are even pet pharmacies.

Beautiful, healthy and homeless. 

So when I hear or read about animal cruelty in Ukraine, I think about the UK and other western countries, where if an animal is not “owned” it is “euthanized” to use that pretentious, politically correct term that simply means killed. So now tell me whose animals are better off?

Looking for the Summer

So, it’s been a few weeks since I last wrote a post. It is of course not because I have nothing to say, it’s because I have been almost busy. Although it’s only a short time, the difference, here in Odessa is immense. Summer held a tenacious grip on the city way into late September and despite a couple of feeble attempts by autumn to gain control, the sunny skies and warm weather continued. Until two weeks ago. With all the zest of an ADHD case on cocaine, Madame autumn ripped the reins of summer from Mother Natures hands and charged Odessa headlong into the season of golden leaves, frost and condensation on the windows.

The Leaves are Falling

Whilst the weather is fine and clear, beautiful in fact, the balmy temperatures of late September have dived into single digits. Gone is the al fresco street dining, the beach goers and the tourists. The beautiful women of Odessa no longer parade in mini skirts, and crop tops, now the fashion of the day is fake fur coats and tight jeans. The six-inch stilettos fortunately are still very much in vogue, although I am not sure how their handling characteristics will cope with the uneven, often dangerous pavements, especially when they are covered in a thin veneer of ice.

Our rented flat, which was an airless sweatbox in the summer, is still, oddly warm. And this is strange because the heating has not been switched on here. You see unlike most of the non-former Soviet Union, here one of the lasting legacies of communism, along with cheap transport and dodgy electricity, is that the heating is communal. Every block has a big boiler room and tall chimney somewhere near the middle. Officially October 15^th is the switch on day, when big old Soviet boilers are fired up, and steaming hot water starts coursing through the antiquated pipe systems into old radiators. The best way to describe the radiators is to imagine a school built in the 1920’s. Visualize the classrooms. See the big old wrought iron monsters underneath the windows. Exactly like that. Only smaller, much much smaller.

Now a quick check of the date reveals that it is, in fact, October 18^th. The tan painted (at least I assume its paint) radiator beside me, is colder than an eskimo’s nose, a silent, heatless monolith. Checking this with Tania, it seems that although October 15^th is the official switch on day, the unofficial switch on day is twenty-four hours after the number of complaints from the residents, consumes more time that actually firing up the boilers and if our flat is typical example, that may be some time yet.

A Few Things

Moving away from my trip to Moldova, I thought I might dwell on some of the subtle and not so subtle differences I have found between the UK and Ukraine. By the way, always refer to it as Ukraine. “The Ukraine” was a part of the Soviet Union and is a term most Ukrainians are trying move away from.

1.     Going to the supermarket for a bag of milk. The first time I stayed in Ukraine, Tania and I rented a flat in the city center. I arrived late so went straight to bed. The next morning, fully refreshed, I was of course, being English, gagging for a cup of tea. Problem was no tea, no milk. So off we went to Tavreya, the Ukrainian version of Tesco’s, to stock up. The tea was simple; it was Liptons (expensive and tasteless) or an unknown brand Ahmed English Tea. Now I am not sure who Ahmed was and how long he had been in England but his tea was pretty good. The milk however was a bit of an eye opener. Sure there were plenty of brands, different types, skimmed, full fat etc, the shocking part was 90% of them were sold in bags not bottles. Tania bought a half-liter, in a cardboard bag and off we went home. These days I have worked out the milk in a bag trick, but in the early days, just getting it to stand up in the fridge was like trying to get a duvet to lean against a wall. So I poured it into a little jug and lo and behold a few hours later it had turned to cheese. Today we still buy milk in a bag but we keep it in the bag, snip a small corner off the top and lean it precariously against the fridge. Never open the fridge door quickly; you will get a milk foot bath.

A Soviet Bread Truck. Nearly as old as the bread

     2. Finding decent bread. For a country that lived on bread under Soviet rule, it’s really difficult to find nice bread. In the UK there are sections of the supermarkets the size of football pitches devoted to the manufacture of yeast-based products. Here they don’t even add the yeast from what I can see. The bread is tasteless, it’s flat and un-risen and there is extraordinary lack of variety. Some of it has also been on the shelves since Lenin was thinking “I wonder what will happen if I fire that canon”

3.     Another shocking thing is the Internet. Its shocking how much better it is than the UK. In the UK it can takes weeks to install, cost a small fortune, never attain the speeds advertised and if you download anything more than a dozen emails you exceed your cap limit. In Odessa, we have had internet installed in three flats. Each time it has been within two days of calling, its cheap, unlimited and best of all fast. Blinding fast both up and downloading. It is nearly always bang on the speed you paid for and sometimes even faster and nobody seems to mind what you download or look at. It’s the Internet how it should be.

4.     Ring Tones. Obviously in the UK people have ringtones but as a generalization they mirror the British character, subtle, refined and conservative. I wouldn’t say that ringtones here mirror the Ukrainian character; I would just say they are bloody annoying. It would seem that despite being apparently ubiquitous, the mobile phone is used to make a statement. A loud statement. It’s most noticeable on the bus when all of a sudden the sound of Fiddly Sense or Booncey soundly erupts into the atmosphere. The fact that it comes from a speaker the size of my little finger nail and is played at a volume that would make even The Who cover their aging ears makes you want to stuff it up a certain part of the owners anatomy. Its awful in the extreme as well as bloody annoying, especially when the phones’ owner cannot remember which part of their anatomy the phone is currently occupying.

So that will do for today, there a many more differences, none of which justify a full article but which together might make a single one. In particular I am still debating with my conscience on writing about “Soviet” toilet paper. Perhaps if I give you advanced warning on that, the squeamish and those with vivid imaginations can skip it.

How the mighty have fallen

When I was a kid, I went on a CND march in my town. Not as a protester you understand, but as a young teenager trying to piss the protesters off. “Maggie Maggie Maggie, Out Out Out” they would chant. “Maggie, Maggie Maggie, In, In, In” was our repost. That was until a barrage of extremely well aimed eggs burst all over our stay-press trousers.

The reason I mention this is because it reminds me of an era, the Cold War, the palatable fear of an unknown foe with unlimited power to destroy civilization, books with names like “The Third World War, A Future History” and films like “War Games”. Even Midge Ure and Ultravox invaded our psyche with Vienna, a song devoted to nuclear holocaust. Looking back the fears were no different than todays, when the cold war ended AID’s conveniently arrived on the scene, as AIDS faded from our conscience, a group of Islamic terrorists slammed aircraft into the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

In our Cold War minds, the closed and highly secretive city of Sevastopol in the southern Soviet Union was the epicenter of fear. Home to the mighty Black Sea Fleet and a few miles to the south at Balaclava, in vast man made caverns carved into a mountain, the hidden menace of the Soviet Ballistic Submarine Missile Fleet lay protected from Western eyes.

A couple of years ago Tania and I disembarked a cruise ship in this once ultra secretive city. We walked past an unoccupied customs booth with nine months worth of luggage, through the main port security gate, manned by one very bored looking soldier, and into a square littered with monuments of Soviet Glory. By the side of the headquarters (still) of the Russian Black Sea Fleet we took a taxi to the central railway station and 30 minutes later boarded a utilitarian ex-Soviet train. No softly padded seats for the comrades, highly polished wooden benches were the order of the day, uncomfortable in the extreme. Doors that you opened yourself, and a train so high above the platform that I though I would require a Sherpa to get into the carriage. As the rusting locomotive slowly pulled us along the banks of the port of Sevastopol, we could see the remaining ships of the Black Sea fleet. It was May Day, one of the most important days in the Eastern European calendar, one that is still celebrated as workers day Because of this, most of the Black Sea fleet ships were in port, their bright colorful flags breaking the monotony of drab dark grey hulls.

The most striking aspect, was that there were not many ships at all, and those that were there were not in a great state of repair. Rust, and neglect had worn down these symbols of Soviet Power into nothing more than untended museum piece. Their shapes were the same from the Janes warfare books I had read as a young teenager in my local library, but that was the point. The current ships of the western navies looked nothing like my memories, technology had marched on, old tonnage replaced and updated. The once mighty Black Sea fleet, pride of the Soviet navy and harbinger of our teenage fears was still the same, only older, unkempt and well worn. It reminded me of myself!

An old rust bucket along side a Russian warship

As a footnote, the submarine base at Balaclava, the epicenter of nuclear paranoia, is now a major Ukrainian tourist destination. You can find it on any map. Just look for “top-secret base”. If you had predicted that 25 years ago they would have locked you up and thrown away the key, or at the very least thrown a barrage of eggs at you.